Tech Stuff | Ain't Complicated

Content With Such Things

For quite a while, I’ve thought owning an LCD projector would be quite handy. So far, though, I’ve done just fine (thank you!) by borrowing the one from the Woodburn Public Library (in Woodburn, Oregon).

This morning, though, I spied one on sale for a penny (or was it a dollar) under $200:

No, I’m not in the market for one. No, I don’t want one for my birthday (even if it is my fiftieth). But that aside — and about the post’s title — I suppose I could be content with such a thing. But I doubt such contentment would last very long. Read it all

Cutting Corners on Tires

Well…how else would you get them round enough to 🙄 ?

Here’s the story that provokes this post:

An Oregon State University researcher who developed a non-toxic adhesive for kitchen cabinetry says he has found a way to use wood fibers to make car tires better for the environment.

😯

Better for the environment, maybe, but will it be better for me the passenger or driver?!!

Oh. Pardon me for interrupting the story.

Microcrystalline cellulose — a product that can be made easily from almost any type of plant fibers — can partially replace silica as a reinforcing filler in the manufacture of rubber tires, says Kaichang Li, an associate professor of wood science and engineering in the OSU College of Forestry.

Li’s research suggests that using plant fibers can reduce the energy required to produce tires, lower costs, and produce tires that better resist heat buildup. That could be good news for Oregon’s timber industry, which needs new uses and products to sustain demand for the state’s timber harvest.

But how would wood-based tires perform? Early tests indicate they could have traction and strength comparable to conventional tires — and make cars more fuel efficient in hot weather.

Source: OSU researchers say wood fiber can make car tires more energy efficient, less expensive

When the rubber meets the road, will this get enough traction to get anywhere? Well, as the good old saying goes, “Knock on wood.” (If you want to drive on wood, that is.)

Of Graphene and Bottled Water

I was winding down my computer stuff for the day when I saw two interesting headlines. Here are the introductions to the stories, under my modified headlines:

New Wonder Material, One Atom Thick

Imagine a carbon sheet that’s only one atom thick but is stronger than diamond and conducts electricity 100 times faster than the silicon in computer chips.

That’s graphene, the latest wonder material coming out of science laboratories around the world. It’s creating tremendous buzz among physicists, chemists and electronic engineers.

“It is the thinnest known material in the universe, and the strongest ever measured,” Andre Geim , a physicist at the University of Manchester, England , wrote in the June 19 issue of the journal Science.

“A few grams could cover a football field,” said Rod Ruoff , a graphene researcher at the University of Texas, Austin , in an e-mail. A gram is about 1/30th of an ounce.

Like diamond, graphene is pure carbon. It forms a six-sided mesh of atoms that, through an electron microscope, looks like a honeycomb or piece of chicken wire. Despite its strength, it’s as flexible as plastic wrap and can be bent, folded or rolled up like a scroll.

Skip the Bottled Water

Consumers know less about the water they pay dearly for in bottles than what they can drink almost for free from the tap because the two are regulated differently, congressional investigators and nonprofit researchers say in new reports.

[…]

The researchers urged Americans to make bottled water “a distant second choice” to filtered tap water because there isn’t enough information about bottled water. The working group recommends purifying tap water with a commercial filter, however.

Now I must get to bed. I volunteered to take my Dad and my aunt to the Portland (Oregon) airport early tomorrow morning. To pull that off, I need to get up at three. 😯

WordPress CSS Issue

I wonder if any of you in my “vast” audience are WordPress and/or CSS gurus.

Here’s the deal….

I have this in my stylesheet:

.quotes { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 1em; text-align: center; padding:5px; border: 3px dotted red; background-color: pink; }

When I use it like this, nothing happens:

<div class="quotes">Choose life</div>

Choose life

But when I put in all that info as a style like this, it works fine:

<div style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 1em; text-align: center; padding:5px; border: 3px dotted red; background-color: pink">Choose life</div>

Choose life

Why is the class being ignored in the div?

This Is News?!

More importantly, is it news that the average American cares about?

And even more important than that, do you care about this?

The National Security Agency is facing renewed scrutiny over the extent of its domestic surveillance program, with critics in Congress saying its recent intercepts of the private telephone calls and e-mail messages of Americans are broader than previously acknowledged, current and former officials said.

Then there’s this later in the story:

it is unavoidable that some innocent discussions of Americans will be examined.

Do you mind if something you say or write is examined?

How about anything?

How about everything?

“Oh be careful little tongue…. Oh be careful little hands….”

Yeah, that’s part of a children’s song that I and you would be wise to follow.

Source: E-Mail Surveillance Renews Concerns in Congress

Half Alive?

Circuit City died.

This morning, in my email, this:

So it sounds as though they’re now an online-only enterprise. Does that mean they’re half alive?

Probably not.

They set up a page on Twitter — so they must not be too dead. Check this out, though:

Only 20 updates and 516 followers!

Well, I upped that to 517.

(Update: Oooops. I messed up the graphic. Til I fixed it, the number of followers had changed.)

They even have some good We’re Back from the Dead deals. Here’s one that I actually added to my cart:

Transcend TS4GJFV30 JetFlash USB Flash Drive - 4GB -- on sale at Circuit City for $2.99

check it out!

Four gigs! (Mine is 512. Megs, that is.)

At $2.99, I’m guessing that’s a Really Good Deal. But I’ve never heard of Transcend before. And paying $6.99 for shipping kinda takes the Really Good out of the Deal. Even if I took that DVD bundle as well — which is quite enticing to me, too.

So, even though I signed up for an account, no sale.

Oh, hey — I was surprised that I had to open an account. It didn’t let me sign in using my old Circuit City account. In fact, it didn’t even recognize my email address.